The Truth That Saves Us | 2/15/26
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Where in your life have you been conditioned to see power as control, dominance, or winning—and how does the cross challenge that definition?
What do you notice about Jesus’ posture on the cross—his forgiveness, his surrender, his concern for others—and which of those feels most difficult for you right now?
Is there an area of your life where you’ve grown accustomed to “just doing your job,” moving through the motions, without expecting anything to surprise you spiritually?
Do you ever find yourself living as if love is limited, scarce, or something that must be protected or earned
As Lent approaches, what feels like it needs to be turned away from in your life—what distractions, fears, or habits may be distancing you from love?
If you were standing at the cross today, what would it take for you to say with conviction, “Truly, this is God’s Son”?
Transcript:
Open our eyes, Lord, because we want to see. We want to see more clearly, and we especially want to see Jesus. This has been the focus and the prayer of our time over these last few weeks as we've been talking about everyday epiphanies.
A few weeks ago, we began with some definitions or descriptions of epiphany, one of which comes from Reverend Doctor Jim Harnish, who authored a book by the same title, Everyday Epiphanies. He describes epiphany this way: Epiphany happens for people who are prepared to see, willing to follow, and open to surprises along the way.
And so today, we take one more opportunity to look at a story from Scripture where there is an epiphany moment—where somebody has an encounter, an experience that opens their eyes to see something differently, or in this case, someone differently.
So our Scripture for today is near the end of the Gospel of Mark. It is in the section where Mark describes the Passion of Christ, something that we will be journeying toward over the next few weeks during Lent. But we drop into the story today with Jesus on the cross. Listen to what happens in these few verses.
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.”
Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son.”
This is the Word of God for the people of God. And God’s people say, thanks be to God.
Would you pray with me?
Come, Holy Spirit, and breathe life into the words that I speak, that they might carry a word from you into our hearts and lives on this day. Amen.
He showed up for work that day just like any other. He understood the assignment: carry out the mission efficiently, keep the crowd under control. If anyone tries to make a spectacle, make sure his men handle it swiftly and with enough force to become a deterrent to any other potential rabble-rousers.
To become a centurion in those days, one would first have needed to be noticed for having the essential assets—an impressive or even imposing physique and mental toughness. Other job requirements were most certainly a no-nonsense attitude, intense loyalty to Caesar, and a ruthless commitment to maintaining order in the Empire.
If you put in your time as a foot soldier and demonstrated all of these qualities, then you just might find yourself being put in charge of a century—a group of about one hundred men, which is where the name comes from: centurion. Sometimes slightly fewer, slightly more, according to historic documents, but approximately one hundred men for whom you were responsible. And if you were selected for this position, it meant you would be well paid and command respect among your peers.
So imagine with me for a moment what it must have been like for the centurion we meet in today’s Scripture. His current assignment is to oversee the executions of those the state has judged as criminals. He has likely been doing this for a while, so he knows what to expect. He knows what he will see as these criminals are carried out to their executions.
The ones who rant, who shout back at the centurion and the soldiers, letting them know they will get what’s coming to them. The ones who scream in those last moments to be heard above all of the other noise, refusing to be silent. The ones who, on the other hand, choose to be defiant in their silence. The ones who cry in anguish. The family members who come and throw themselves at the centurion’s feet, begging for mercy for their loved one.
He has seen it all. He knows how to handle it and how to keep the program moving forward. He showed up for work that day, just like any other. On the docket for the morning were three to be executed on this particular day, one of whom was a man named Jesus.
The centurion assigned some of his men to prepare the holes, to make sure they were ready for the crosses that would be raised as a display—a sign for all who might wonder about the power of the Empire, a warning to others who might want to resist. Others were instructed to be the ones who would drive the nails into the bodies of those being crucified. Still others were stationed around the area to keep the peace.
With everything in place, the centurion scanned the landscape for any potential trouble. And then, right on time—because the machine always worked with great precision—at nine a.m. on the dot, he gave the nod to the soldiers responsible for escorting the prisoners, each to their assigned cross.
Six hours went by. He was accustomed to these things taking time. But I wonder what he saw and maybe noticed that day that was different.
The way that when the soldiers mocked and insulted and taunted and spit at Jesus, Jesus did not spit back, but instead looked at them with sadness in his eyes and said, “Father, forgive them.” The way in which he so freely relinquished and surrendered himself. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” The way in which, in those final moments, he was not thinking about himself or his own needs, but about the needs of those closest to him—his mother and his disciples—and what the future would look like for them without him.
All of these things happened while Jesus was hanging there on the cross.
And then came the moment when, at three in the afternoon, Jesus died. And when he did, Mark tells us, “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son.’”
The centurion had an epiphany. This man was God’s Son—which, in the moment he said that, also meant that that man was not God’s son. That man being Caesar. Because he had been taught to believe that it was the emperor who was divinely appointed. He was commanded to defend the emperor’s absolute power. He was conditioned to assume that power looked like conquest and domination and oppression and elimination.
But there at the cross, when he looked upon Jesus and witnessed his death, his eyes were opened to a truth he could not have anticipated: that the only thing more powerful than hate is love.
I have been thinking about that this past week, wondering, why it is that the greatest news on the planet is so often perceived as a threat? The news that God so loved the whole world—the whole world—that God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, John tells us, but so that whoever believes in him might be saved and discover eternal life. The good news that God so loved the whole world.
And yet so often it seems like people fear that there is not enough love to go around. So hear the good news again today, my friends: God so loved the whole world, so that whoever believes in him might come to know the good news of that love and might respond in such a way that they begin to live into a new reality.
Because love is not a commodity that runs out, expires, or is exhaustible. Love is a renewable resource that, when practiced freely, only grows and expands.
In that moment at the cross, the centurion was confronted by the scandalous choice that the Gospels and the other writers of the New Testament point us to time and time again: when God shows up in the flesh, God does not come with vengeance or violence or artillery or brute force. God shows up in the person of Jesus Christ with the kind of love that is willing to lay down his life.
We could go lots of places in Scripture and find evidence of that truth. It is across the pages of Scripture. Just a few reminders:
John 10:10—Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, and I lay my life down freely for the sheep.”
John 15:13—“No one has greater love than this, but that he would lay down his life for his friends.”
Or in Philippians 2, when Paul recites the Christ hymn of the early church and reminds us that even though Jesus was with God and had equality with God, he did not exploit that relationship, but rather emptied himself, humbled himself, and became obedient to the way of love—even when that obedience meant hanging to die on a cross.
And then in his first letter to the Corinthians, in the first chapter, Paul says—in the words of Eugene Peterson—“The message that points to Christ on the cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent on destruction. But for those on the way of salvation, it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully, as it turns out.”
You see, the inexhaustible love of Christ—especially as we witness it at the cross—confronts us with a decision to be made. Will we choose to live in the way of empire, or will we choose to live in the way of Christ?
This week, we have an invitation to start fresh.
Every year at the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, we have an opportunity to be reminded of our mortality, to be reminded of our need to turn from whatever it is that has distracted or disturbed us or distanced us from the way to which God points us—the things that keep us from being in relationship with God and with our neighbor—and to choose once again the way that Christ points us toward: the way of love, the way of connection, the way that welcomes us home.
This year during the season of Lent, we will be listening closely to the words of Jesus that we find in the Sermon on the Mount—words that point us to an inverted way of life, one that is challenging to follow but one that offers us the truth that saves us.
And so I hope that over these next few weeks we will walk this journey together all the way to the cross, and that when we are there, we might see Jesus for who he really is.
And we might be the ones who say, “Truly, this man is God’s Son.” Amen.
